Byron Dorgan

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I understand yesterday there was a press conference on the Capitol lawn. They brought in some big, shiny farm tractors and a group of folks held a press conference, with the tractors as a background, wheezing and moaning about the agriculture appropriations bill, saying somehow that bill is getting held up and it will hurt family farmers. I advise my colleagues, if we had invoked cloture as the majority leader and others wanted with respect to that bill, we would have been prevented the opportunity to offer an amendment on the floor dealing with the farm crisis, an amendment that provides some basic income support to family farmers during this urgent farm crisis. We would not have been able to do that. Voting yes on cloture, on a bill that the majority leader pulled off the floor and then brought back on a cloture motion, would mean there is no opportunity to vote for some kind of income support package for family farms while there are collapsed prices. We have tried to get that before this Congress. I sat downstairs at midnight in the emergency conference on appropriations between the House and the Senate. Senator Harkin and I offered an amendment that would have provided about $5.5 billion in emergency help for family farmers during this collapse of farm prices. We lost on a 14-14 tie vote. Then we tried in the appropriations subcommittee and lost there on a partisan vote. We intend to offer the amendment on behalf of family farmers on the floor, saying when prices collapse, if this country cares about family farmers, if this Senate is indeed profamily and cares about family farmers and wants to have some family farmers in its future, then it will pass an emergency package to respond to family farmers' needs during this price collapse. We wouldn't have been able to do that if we voted to invoke cloture. We would not have been able to offer the amendment. Now we have people saying somehow those who voted against cloture have disserved the interests of farmers. The agricultural appropriations bill that came to the floor is a piece of legislation that funds USDA; it funds the research programs and the other programs at USDA. It takes effect October 1. It does not take effect for months. The delay of the bill is not going to injure, in any way, family farmers. The bill will get passed on time. It will be sent to the President and be signed. Contrary to those standing in front of a tractor yesterday, wheezing and blowing about farm issues--some of whom I bet wouldn't know a bale of hay from a bale of twine--I guarantee before that bill leaves the Senate, we intend to offer an emergency package to say to family farmers: You matter; we are going to help you; when prices collapse, we will help you over the price ``valley.'' What happens to a company on Wall Street, Long-Term Capital Management, that threatens to lose billions of dollars? What happens is they get bailed out by the Federal Reserve Board. What would happen if we were talking about big corporations? They would get bailed out, but they are family farmers. Somehow in the minds of some, it does not matter what happens to family farmers. It matters to me. It does to many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle. I know why they held the press conference with tractors. It is because they are upset that folks on this side of the aisle offered a Patients' Bill of Rights. The reason the Patients' Bill of Rights was offered in the Senate on agriculture, and it would not have mattered on which bill it was offered, is we said it was going to be offered to the first bill that came up if we were not given the opportunity to have a Patients' Bill of Rights on the floor of the Senate. It was offered because we have pushed and pushed and pushed and we have been denied the opportunity to debate and offer amendments on a Patients' Bill of Rights. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to work. You are supposed to be able to offer legislation, offer amendments, have debates, and then have a vote. But some do not want the Senate to operate that way. They want to shut the place down, close the blinds, pull the windows shut, and then say: This is our agenda. Here is all we are going to allow you to do. You can offer these three amendments. They have to be worded this way. If we don't agree with them, we will not give you the privilege of speaking on the floor. That is not the way the Senate is supposed to operate and we will not let it operate that way. We have rights. The American people have rights. In my judgment, patients in this country have the right to know all of their medical options for their treatment, not just the cheapest. Patients have the right to get emergency room treatment when they have an emergency. Patients have a right to keep their own doctors during cancer treatment even if their employers change HMOs. All of those issues are issues we intend to fight for on behalf of patients in this country. But we are denied that right by a majority who says you can only talk about the things we want to talk about. Then when the agriculture appropriations bill or any other bill comes to the floor and we offer the Patients' Bill of Rights, we are told by the same folks who say they care about farmers that we have delayed the agriculture appropriations bill. This bill will not take effect until October 1 and is to fund the U.S. Department of Agriculture and had we voted for cloture, it would have prevented Senator Harkin and myself from offering the specific amendment to deal with income support for family farmers during this farm crisis. I just have to say it takes some imagination to hold a conference and suggest we are the problem.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. I think that is exactly the case, the reason over 200 medical, consumer, and labor groups support this legislation. I have a picture loaned to me by Dr. Ganske, who is a Member of Congress from the House, a Republican, a very thoughtful Congressman. He is a doctor who does reconstructive surgery. He held up the picture of this young boy. Let me hold up that picture, if I might, just so everyone understands what we are talking about. This is a terrible deformity. Dr. Ganske held this picture up to use it as an illustration. Obviously, you look at this young boy and you say what an awful deformity to have to live with. But there are ways, of course, to correct this. A young boy doesn't have to live with that deformity. Dr. Ganske pointed out he did a survey of his fellow doctors and discovered that half of his fellow doctors had experienced the circumstance of having an HMO say: No, this is not medically necessary. You don't need to correct this. It is not medically necessary. Can this young person live with this? Yes, I suppose so. Would any prudent American say it is medically necessary to help fix this problem, to give this young child the opportunity to get reconstructive surgery? The answer is clearly yes. That is what is at the root of this issue.

Mr. DORGAN. Yes.

Mr. DORGAN. As I understand it, the Senator describes the case exactly. Virtually every organization in health care supports what we are trying to do. The doctors in this country, the patients all support what we are trying to do because they know we are trying to solve problems. Let me go back to this notion there are two different approaches. The approach they offer is toothless. It has a title and does not mean anything very much. The approach we offer has teeth, is real, and makes a difference in people's lives. I want to make one additional point and then conclude because I know there are others who wish to speak. I came to the floor today because the majority leader and others held a press conference yesterday with tractors as a backdrop saying what we have been doing here is shortchanging American farmers. Nothing is further from the truth. American farmers are going to be well served by a Senate that does not push this agriculture appropriations bill through without emergency help which farmers desperately need. That is exactly what would have happened if we had voted for cloture as the majority leader was insisting. Had we voted for cloture on the agriculture appropriations bill, the amendment that Senator Harkin and I were going to offer for $6 billion to $7 billion in emergency help for farmers would have been ruled nongermane. It would have been over. We cannot pass an agriculture appropriations bill in the Senate without addressing this farm crisis, and those who stood in front of tractors and talked about farmers know that. They know better than that. We cannot pass an agriculture appropriations bill and say we have done our job if we ignore the crisis which now exists and if we do not pass some basic income support package. Senator Harkin, Senator Durbin, and I tried in the midnight hours of the emergency appropriations bill. We lost on a 14-14 tie vote. We tried to get it in this year's appropriations bill but lost on a partisan vote. We must try again on the floor of the Senate, and we will in the coming weeks. We had a farmer and author testify before the Democratic Policy Committee named Wendell Berry. He has written a book called ``Another Turn of the Crank.'' I was thinking about that today because yesterday's show in front of these polished tractors was just another turn of the crank. As I said, some of these folks would not know a bale of hay from a bale of twine and they are telling us about the long-term interests of farmers. Many of us who fight for farmers every day in every way are insistent that before this Senate moves any appropriations bill dealing with agriculture out of this Senate, it does not just deal with the programs and research over in USDA, that it deals with the income needs of family farmers. That is what has been at stake in the last couple of days. Frankly, I am not a happy person to see the criticism that has been leveled by those who do not know anything about family farmers and those actions which will undercut our attempt to help family farmers.

Mr. DORGAN. That is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. I cannot. The Senator makes a point with his question. This is real trouble for a lot of patients, and what we are trying to do and say is health care is changing and patients ought to have rights. That is what our Patients' Bill of Rights does. It empowers patients and allows them to believe that if they are covered with health care through their HMO, there will be some basic guarantees that just, prudent people expect would be there anyway but which we have now seen in recent years by some HMOs have systematically been denied patients. Let me make one final point. Not always, but too often health care treatment has become a function of profit and loss for some corporations. Look at their executives. Find how much money they are making in this industry. Then they say: But we can't afford to provide emergency room care for someone who is unconscious and presents himself on a gurney to emergency room workers, or we can't help this young child with a facial deformity which clearly needs attention. We can't help a child in a wheelchair who has a 50-percent chance of walking and told you don't get the therapy because a 50-percent chance of walking by age 5 is insignificant. We are saying those are not medical judgments made by a doctor. Those are insurance judgments made by HMO accountants 1,000 miles away, and they undercut the very premise of this health care system in which we ought to expect prudent treatment that a doctor believes is necessary for a patient. Yet in too many instances, they are not getting it. This is not just a consumer bill or a patients' bill, it is a bill that really gets at the root of health care in this country. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN. I say to the Senator, I was as surprised as anyone to read the news these days about doctors wanting to join a union. But the reason is pretty obvious. They are tired of not being able to practice health care on their own. They are tired of someone making decisions about their patients who they have seen. They are the ones who have been in the examining rooms. They are the ones who have visited the hospital beds. Yet an accountant 500 miles away or 1,000 miles away in some insurance office, is telling them how to practice medicine. They are flat sick of it.

Mr. DORGAN. I will be happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator describes it exactly. It is the difference between one approach that is toothless and an approach that has some teeth to it that says we are going to make this work; we are going to offer some basic protections to patients. I have a poster I was going to show today. I will show it later in the day. It is a poster of a young boy in a wheelchair named Ethan who was denied treatment by the HMO. He was born with very difficult problems that impaired the use of his limbs. He was denied treatment because a doctor who had never seen this young patient decided that the patient had a 50-percent chance of being able to walk by age 5, and a 50-percent chance of being able to walk if he gets the appropriate therapy is ``not significant.'' This is from a doctor who did not see the patient. It is not significant that this person might have a 50- percent chance of being able to walk, therefore we deny coverage. That is the kind of thing that is happening time and time again. I say to the Senator from Illinois, I have talked about this woman who falls off a cliff, drops 40 feet, fractures her bones in three places, is knocked unconscious, taken by medevac helicopter out to a hospital, is brought into the emergency room unconscious, survives, and later is told: We will not pay the emergency room bill because you didn't have prior approval for emergency room treatment. This is a woman unconscious, brought into the emergency room for help. That is the kind of thing that ought to stop. Does she have a right through her health care coverage to emergency room treatment when she is knocked unconscious from a fall in the mountains? The answer is yes, of course. We demand that right be given that patient in this Patients' Bill of Rights.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to yield.

Mr. DORGAN. I think that is correct.

Mr. DORGAN. The Senator asks a question that relates to the key components of our piece of legislation. I again refer to this picture used by Dr. Ganske, a Congressman in the House of Representatives, a Republican who supports our basic legislation. Does current medical technology and all the advances in reconstructive surgery do this young child any good, if the child does not have access to it, if the child's parents belong to an HMO that says, no, it is not medically necessary we correct that deformity, it is not medically necessary at all? Does that kind of medicine help this child? The answer is no. What helps this child is a determination by this Senate that health care plans ought to judge on a uniform basis that this type of deformity is medically necessary and this child would get reconstructive treatment to solve that problem.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I see the Senator from Mississippi, Mr. Cochran, is on the floor. I don't know whether he is prepared to call up the bill or speak on the bill. If not, I was going to speak for an additional 5 minutes, but I certainly don't have to do that. I will defer at this point, if the Senator from Mississippi is ready to take up the bill.

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I come to the floor today to speak about Devils Lake in North Dakota. Most people don't know about Devils Lake. It is one of only two lakes at the bottom of a closed basin in the entire country. One is the Great Salt Lake, the other is Devils Lake. Devils Lake has a basin about the size of the State of Massachusetts tucked inside the borders of North Dakota. To set the stage, North Dakota is ten times the size of Massachusetts. Devils Lake has been subject to chronic emergency flooding now for many years. That flooding in Devils Lake over recent years has caused absolute chaos for the folks who live in that region of northeastern North Dakota. This is a lake that has risen about 25 feet in 7 years. In the past 60 years, it has risen nearly 50 feet. If you were a family living in Minnewaukan, ND, it wasn't too long ago that you lived 7 miles away from a lake. But recently I was standing in Minnewaukan, and the lake is right up to the back yards of that community. In 7 short years, people who lived 7 miles away from the lake now find the lake flooding their property. The cost of this flooding, in human terms, is massive. The lake continues to rise in a manner that is uncontrolled, and the question for the Corps of Engineers and the Federal Government is: What do we do to respond to the threatening rise of the lake that has occurred in recent years and threatens a fairly large city in North Dakota? It threatens to cut off one region of our state from emergency services and the normal commerce of daily life. It inundates roads, railways and utilities. In response, over $300 million has been spent in that region raising roads and relocating people and building dikes--doing all the things necessary to combat the flooding. This is a different kind of flood, unlike a river flood, where we see a picture on television of a swollen river moving very rapidly and causing chaos with houses floating down the river. The lake flooding here has come, and it has stayed, slowly destroying homes and businesses. It is causing major problems. One of the plans with respect to this Devils Lake flooding has been to build an outlet. We are building dikes to protect cities and protect roads. We are raising roads, using roads as dikes. We are doing all of these things over recent years. One of the pending proposals is to build an outlet to take a small amount of pressure off the lake. The challenge is that there is no problem-free place to put the water. You could put some of it in the Sheyenne River, which goes down to the Red River and up into Canada. An outlet to the Sheyenne River can provide relief but must be well- managed to avoid causing problems for others. We don't want to solve a problem by creating a problem for others. The question of building an outlet has been a very difficult and sensitive one. By the same token, most everyone believes it is an emergency and we must use a comprehensive strategy to try to take some pressure off this lake, including upland storage in the upper part of the basin and building an outlet to take some pressure off the lake. However, all of the plans and work to build an outlet have been for naught at this point, because the Corps of Engineers is at odds with itself on the question of whether an outlet should be built. I came to the Senate floor to put in the Record two things. One is a ``Draft Summary Document for the Report to Congress on the Emergency Outlet from Devils Lake, North Dakota, to the Sheyenne River, North Dakota.'' This was prepared by the St. Paul District Office of the Army Corps of Engineers. I requested this be made available to me by the Department of the Army's Corps of Engineers Division Office in Vicksburg, MS. Incidentally, Vicksburg, MS, has jurisdiction over North Dakota. Now, Lord only knows how that can happen. Tell me how it makes sense for a general sitting down in Vicksburg, MS, to tell us about lake flooding in North Dakota. But that is the way it is and the way the Corps is organized. The St. Paul district, which has spent a great deal of time on this issue, prepared this document. I want to read just a bit from the document. The St. Paul district says pointedly that we face emergency conditions. This is the Corps of Engineers, St. Paul office: Clearly we face emergency situations and we need to proceed. The St. Paul division further says: Further study and analysis are not reasonable responses to what is truly an emergency situation. What is required is a proactive, multifaceted emergency flood damage reduction plan to protect not only Devils Lake but the region. The lake is within a single Probable Maximum Flood (PMF) event of overtopping the levees protecting the City of Devils Lake, and for the first time in recorded history, the lake is within single PMF event of spilling into the Sheyenne River . . . . Any project that would prevent the natural overflow would be justified by economics and from a human health and safety perspective. Accordingly, the St. Paul District recommends immediate action leading to the construction of an emergency outlet. The Mississippi division, which has charge of the St. Paul division, is 1,500 miles away. The general at the Mississippi division and his staff have come up with a completely different perspective. They are farther away, spend far less time on this issue, and know much less about the issue. The Mississippi commander wrote a letter to the North Dakota congressional delegation questioning the summary recommendations of the St. Paul office, which has done all of the work on this issue and whose experts judged there to be an emergency--one that justifies an outlet. The Vicksburg office in Mississippi says that is not the case at all. They say they don't need an outlet. They say, first of all, they are not certain there is an emergency at all. They say an outlet is not necessary or appropriate. ``Of the outlet plans reviewed, none of the outlet plans show benefits exceeding costs.'' Incidentally, this computation by the Division ``experts'' wouldn't meet third grade math standards. They arbitrarily establish costs and benefits, but then leave out some of the real and major benefits. These benefits include, for example, not having to increase roads in order to keep roads open in this basin. Tens and tens and tens of millions of dollars are required to do that. But maybe if you have an outlet you don't have to do that. The Corps of Engineers Division Office says: That is not the problem or the complication because we have ``principles and guidelines'' to use for the computations. So we leave out large categories of costs avoided. Then they say the cost-benefit calculation does not work. The Mississippi division agrees with St. Paul that dikes should be built but only supports building an outlet subject to a favorable analysis. In fact, the division doesn't believe that on outlet is appropriate. The St. Paul Corps of Engineers said: Yes to an outlet. They are the ones who know this region. They study it, and are in charge of it. Vicksburg, 1,500 miles away, says no. When the Corps decided to move its office to Vicksburg, MS, I had a fit. I should have tried to put a wrench in the crankcase then, and I did not do everything I should have done--I admit. It didn't make any sense at all to decide that the Corps of Engineers' headquarters for a region similar to that ought to be in Mississippi, 1,500 miles away. Here is the evidence. The evidence is that you have the Corps arguing with the Corps. The St. Paul office, which knows the subject best, says: Here is what ought to be done. It is an emergency. We support an outlet for the following reasons. Here is what we ought to do. The folks in Mississippi say: Gee. We don't believe that at all. The only reason I am putting two documents in the Record today by consent--I would like to include in the Record the summary document prepared by the St. Paul office of the Corps of Engineers and the letter sent to the congressional delegation by General Anderson, who runs the Vicksburg office of the Corps of Engineers--is that they directly contradict each other. Again, it is the same agency. Let me use a couple of charts because I think it is useful to see. This is the level of Devils Lake. You can see what is happening with this lake. This shows 1445.5 feet. It is actually now again up to 1447. So this chart is actually out of date in just a month or two. That chart shows what is happening to this lake. Actually, the most appropriate chart to show for Devils Lake is a chart that I want to put up. This chart is actually a picture taken of a woman in 1993. If you look carefully, you can see she is standing at the bottom of the telephone pole in the Devils Lake area. I want to show you where the lake is right now. It is not here. This is also out of date. This is 1445.5. The lake is now 1447 feet. It is above this chart. Here is where this woman would be in the lake at the moment with the lake somewhere around 25 or 30 feet above her head. This picture was taken in 1993. That will describe to you what has happened here. I mentioned to you that people who used to live 7 miles away from the lake 7 years ago now have a lake behind their homes threatening their houses. This doesn't happen anywhere else in the country. It happens in the Great Salt Lake and in Devils Lake. They are the only two closed basins in America in which you have this kind of flooding. The Great Salt Lake threatened a flood in a very dramatic way and receded. But Devils Lake continues to increase. I want to show you what is happening. Every single year the Corps of Engineers says: Well, we were at 1437 feet, then the height of that lake. There is less than a 3-percent chance that it will increase. It increased up to 1443. Then they said there was a less than a 1-percent chance it would increase once more. Again, it increased up to 1444.7. They said that there was less than a 1-percent chance again, and it may well increase to 1447.5 by the middle part of this summer. Every single year we are in a wet cycle, and this basin continues to flood and cause chaos for the people of that region. Here is the cost. Here is what is happening to us and what happens with respect to this flooding. At some point, this flows naturally across the divide out of the basin with the worst possible quality of water, with dissolved solids that create a terrible quality of water that everyone is afraid of. And it flows naturally across the divide at 1460, down into the Sheyenne River, up the Red River into Canada, causing very significant problem for major population centers. That is why all of us have to be concerned about this. Here is what the damages are when you have that kind of flooding. Again, it is not river flooding where a gushing river grabs a house and throws it downstream and you have dramatic pictures. It is a lake that gobbles up a region, people, property, and hope inch by inch. What is happening is the cumulative damages, as this lake goes up, are massive--about $300 million to date, and the prospect is much more. I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the document that I asked the Vicksburg office to provide me which reflects the recommendations by the Corps of Engineers at the St. Paul office, and also the document that is offered by the general who is in charge of the Vicksburg office.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, if the Senator from Mississippi is prepared to speak on something, I would be happy to defer. I want to speak for 5 minutes on something that is going to happen, perhaps, in a day or so. I have spoken about this a great deal. That is the question of interest rates and the Federal Reserve Board that will be meeting this week. We are told that the Federal Reserve Board will almost certainly increase interest rates later this week. I thought it would be interesting to include in a discussion on the floor an analysis of what has happened to the rate of inflation in this country. Interest rates are still at a rather high rate after adjusting for inflation. The economic rent for money is still very high given the historic American standards. The inflation rate--especially the core inflation rate--has dropped very dramatically in recent years. Incidentally, despite all the predictions by all of the best economists at the Fed and elsewhere, they used to say if you penetrate through 6 percent unemployment you clearly have massive inflation problems. You just can't have low unemployment and low inflation. The economy, of course, confounded all of them. I think part of the reason was the models are all wrong. The models reflect traditional economic theory, and that doesn't account for the global economy in which producers produce anywhere they want in the world at lower costs and, therefore, put downward pressure on wages in the industrialized countries. But despite that, even if the models are wrong, what has happened is that as unemployment has reduced in this country and come down rather dramatically over the years, so too has inflation. Looking at the rates of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, going back to 1990, we were at 6 percent, then down to just over 3 percent, under 3 percent, and down under 2 percent. The fact is inflation is well under control. The downward pressures that the global economy has put on wages in this country, I think, will continue to keep the rate of inflation well under control. The Federal Reserve Board has a different set of circumstances it will evaluate. The Federal Reserve Board is an interesting board. It was created in the nineteen-teens. President Wilson and those involved promised the country: We are not and will not ever create a strong central bank. We just won't do that. For many years, of course, the Fed has had a central banking function that has been enormously strong, and largely unaccountable. Some people think that is a virtue to be unaccountable to anything or anyone else in the country so it can run monetary policy as it sees fit, unlike others who are involved in the executive and legislative branch running fiscal policy. The Federal Reserve Board is made up of a Board of Governors. We have one seat vacant. We have one seat that is being vacated. It is also joined in the Open Market Committee by a rotating group of members of the presidents of the regional Federal Reserve banks. The presidents of the Federal Reserve banks are hired and retained by their boards of directors who are their bankers in their regions. Despite the fact they are not confirmed by anyone and are accountable only to the bankers and boards of directors in their region, they come to town on a rotating basis with the Board of Governors' to vote on interest rate policy. The Fed will probably, the day after tomorrow, decide it should increase short-term interest rates again. I don't agree with that. I think it is a terrible decision to make. I don't think any evidence that justifies a hike in rates. Some of my colleagues come to the floor and say: What are you talking about? Mr. Greenspan ought to be credited for the great economy. In my opinion, this nation's economic performance--if you review the record--is in spite of the estimates by Mr. Greenspan and the Federal Reserve Board. They insisted we could not pierce 6-percent unemployment without having a rekindling of inflation. They were wrong. The unemployment rate has remained below 6-percent for nearly five years with low inflation. Now the Fed will say it has finally seen a demon in a closet somewhere called inflation that they can use to justify increasing interest rates. I think they are wrong. The American people, and especially producers, are already paying a higher economic rent for money than is currently warranted, given the core rate of inflation. Organizations such as the National Association of Manufacturers believe it is not appropriate to have the Federal Reserve Board once again increase interest rates. The National Association of Manufacturers sent a fax sheet last Friday to 535 Members of the House and the Senate detailing why they think interest rates are already high enough and that an increase in the rates is not justified in light of an already slowing economy. I happen to agree with that; I know others do not. I also happen to think the Federal Reserve Board and these Members ought to have some basic accountability. We ought to at least give them credit if you think they have done a wonderful job. Here are their names, addresses, pedigrees, and grey suits. Here are their salaries. If you think, however, they are pursuing an unreasonably high interest rate policy, given the rate of inflation, here is who they are. Here is how much money they make. Here is who the regional Fed bank board of directors have appointed to be in charge of public policy. They come on a rotating basis, galloping into Washington, DC, shutting their large oak doors and make a decision on behalf of America. They will decide they think interest rates aren't high enough. They have decided for a long while that too many people were working in this country--a decision I did not quite understand. They serve their own constituents; their constituents are their member banks. Perhaps some day we can have a debate about monetary policy in this Senate. A century ago it used to be debated in barber shops and bars. Not too long ago, I studied money and banking in graduate school. Lyndon Johnson was President and William McChesney Martin was head of the Federal Reserve Board. He was going to increase interest rates by one-quarter of 1 percent. Lyndon Johnson sent for him to come down to the ranch in the Perdinales in Texas for a barbecue. He put his arms around him and almost squeezed barbecue juice over that fellow--all over one-quarter of 1 percent. Now it is not a big deal. The Fed shuts their door and everybody says: Hosanna--whatever the Fed thinks is what the economic doctrine ought to be. Not with me. I think there is no justification with respect to the rate of inflation for the Fed to put this additional charge on American producers or the American people. When the Fed meets this week behind closed doors--and this is who they are, where they live, how much money they make--give them credit or blame them, depending on your economic doctrine. My policy is interest rates are higher than is justified, or higher than justified at this point, given the rate of inflation in this country. The economic rent now charged for money exceeds the economic rent by historical standards over a long period of time. For the Fed to shut its doors and decide the economic rent ought to be higher, in my judgment, is fundamentally wrong. That is probably a minority view these days, given the reverence for Fed policy, but it is at least therapeutic for me to say it on a Monday, preceding the Fed's meeting. If they increase interest rates at their meeting this week, I will come back with more to say. I hope perhaps they will surprise me and others and decide there is no data to justify an increase in interest rates given the rate of inflation in our economy today. I yield the floor.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. I ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. I object.

Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN. On behalf of the Senator from Minnesota, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. DORGAN

Mr. DORGAN. That is my request.

Mr. DORGAN. Let me just make this point: We are going to pass an agriculture appropriations bill. The Senator from Idaho says: Well, we all agree there is a problem. We need to understand the scope and the depth. I understand the scope and the depth of this problem. I sat in the Appropriations Committee conference in the basement of this building at midnight one night, when nobody said we needed to understand the scope and depth of the Defense Department issues. The Pentagon asked for $6 billion to prosecute the airstrikes needed to replenish their funds, and the Congress said: Well, you don't know what you are doing. We want to add another $6 billion. You didn't ask for enough money for the Pentagon. We demand that we give you $6 billion more. Nobody was sitting around saying we need to understand the scope and the depth of that. They said: We demand you take $6 billion more money. That night, about 1 in the morning, Senator Harkin and I said, if there is an extra $5 or $6 billion around, we demand a debate on the priority of its use. We have people going broke in farm country. We demand that some of it be used for that. So we offered an amendment. By 14 to 14, we lost on a tie vote; I suppose, because some didn't know the scope and the depth. The Senator from Idaho cares a lot about family farming, as do I. It is mixing, in my judgment, a concoction of bad meals here to suggest that by adding a Patients' Bill of Rights to this particular bill it does something to agriculture or somebody isn't committed to agriculture. That is all fog. We wouldn't be here talking about this had someone, some long while ago, said, yes, we will give you your rights on the floor of the Senate to bring a bill to the floor and to offer amendments. Yet we have been systematically denied that opportunity. That is why, whether it is this bill or any other bill, you are going to find these kinds of amendments. As soon as those who are in charge allow the Senate to operate the way it ought to operate and function, you will not see these amendments. In my judgment, we are here on the Patients' Bill of Rights because we have been told: We don't want you to be able to offer your amendments on the Patients' Bill of Rights dealing with scope, dealing with emergency room treatment, and so on. That is why we are here.

Mr. DORGAN. I am happy to.